Vacation
by smarty0007
Summary: It's about time Helga and Arnold take a vacation, but they have to make a quick stop on the way first.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Thanks for reading! :)**

"Papa! Papa!"

The gray-haired man jumped up from his chair and roared with delight as he swung the tiny girl up into a bear hug. "Hey there, Little Lady!"

He set her down amid animated babbling about what she did at preschool that week with a, "Yeah, yeah, great. Now go play," and stuck his head around the banister. "Hey, hey, hey! Don't scratch the walls with that thing!"

A well-mannered voice shouted from above, "We'll be careful, Dad!"

Helga practically kicked open the bedroom door and unceremoniously plunked the bags she was carrying onto the worn rug, shaking her head and mumbling, "… _I_ don't even call him..."

Arnold was right behind her with an old battered suitcase, breathing heavily. "Are you sure she needs all this stuff?"

"Do _you_ want to be the one who gets to talk to a panicked Bob and Miriam when they can't find Lockjaw or Abner?" She rooted in one of the bags and held up a stuffed turtle and pig, respectively. The tails of both looked like they had been repaired if not entirely replaced—despite the careful and uniform stitches of a practiced hand, the slightly mismatched fabrics gave it away. "Because I sure as hell—"

"Hello! Hey there, Tex." Arnold poked his face around his wife's side at the curious child in the doorway. She'd already found one of Miriam's many horse collectibles, its tail clutched in her hand, dappled torso swinging gently. "Aren't you excited to be staying in your Mom's old room?"

The question went unanswered. "Mimi!"

Miriam appeared and stooped for a sloppy kiss before straightening up and declaring, "Now, you two, everything is going to be just _fine_." She adjusted her glasses on her nose. "We have everything under control."

"Thanks, Mom—" but Miriam was already being enthusiastically pulled away by the hand.

"The alphabet already! You're my smart Little Girl!" Their mismatched footsteps faded down the hallway.

Helga sighed and rummaged through the suitcase, grumbling through a mental checklist. A pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders and warm lips brushed her neck, lingering slyly in the spot she liked just below her ear. "Come on, it'll be fine. And if we don't leave—" Arnold glanced at his pocket watch, which still boasted a fresh scribble of pink-markered (and uniquely-shaped) hearts on the back, "—five minutes ago, we're going to miss our flight."

"All right…"

Bob was sitting in the living room, his granddaughter laying on the floor, happily engaging horse and stegosaurus in noisy mid-air altercation.

"I'll go turn the car around," Arnold said as he slipped out the front door.

"Okay!" Helga enunciated loudly. She stood expectantly in the foyer, hands on her hips. No one answered. "We're _leaving_ now…" Nothing. She rolled her eyes and pulled the door open. The latch slid with a familiar and solid _clack_ into place behind her.

She was reaching for the handle on her side of the car when the front door burst open. "Have a wonderful time, honey!" Miriam was suddenly giving her a tight squeeze. Helga breathed deeply, keenly aware of her mother's perfume (and only perfume) and sighed, slightly guilty for the old habit but relieved nonetheless. Miriam was still waxing nostalgic, "And I know you two sure can cut a rug, but don't let that discourage you from taking a dance class—it's so _invigorating_ —"

"Mommy!" Helga was now fully immobile, all limbs constrained by other people's arms.

"Be good for your Papa and Mimi." Helga's fingers found the top of her daughter's head and swept tenderly through the wispy bangs on her forehead.

"It's good to see you, Girl." A large hand gruffly landed on her shoulder. And now Bob was there, of all things. She vaguely registered Arnold's voice telling their daughter he loved her.

"Thanks, Dad." Why was she whispering?

"And don't forget to wear _plenty_ of—"

"Sunscreen, we know, we know…" Now that she was halfway into the car, her voice was coming back to her.

"Got it right here—" Arnold waved a small bottle of it out of the window. "Kid-strength."

The horn beeped and they waved until their family was out of sight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note:** I wasn't sure about continuing, but inspiration struck. I think it'll end up being a two-part story.

 **Disclaimer:** I own nothing! Thanks for reading! :)

"All right, where is it?" His wife noisily shook him from his thoughts.

"Where is what?" From his folding chair, Arnold lazily looked over the top of his sunglasses. He nestled his feet deeper into the sand. The breeze stirred his hair in a fabulously refreshing way. Maybe he would teach Helga how to surf later today.

Helga continued to rummage in her beach bag, eventually dumping the entire contents out onto the sand.

"You're going to get sand all over—never mind…" Arnold made a mental note of the page number—seven—and shut his book. He was never going to finish it.

"Where did you hide it?" Helga snapped her head around at him and whipped off her own shades, a cheap plastic pair they'd bought on a whim while strolling the boardwalk the previous afternoon.

Arnold shrugged and thumbed back to his page. "I still don't know what you're talking about, my dear, sweet wife." He tried to imagine the dinner they'd eaten last night, the music wafting from the bar, the way his wife's hair gleamed in the moonlight (just as it had at their wedding) as he twirled her by the fingers—

The book was snatched out of his hands. "I'm only going to ask one more time, Football Head—"

"Wow, you _are_ mad." Arnold shook his head bemusedly at her. Then, with nothing else to do, he started cleaning his sunglasses on his board shorts.

"If you want your book back," Helga's icy voice hissed, "you're going to tell me where my phone is."

"It's probably back in the house. Maybe on the night stand. You know, where you plugged it in last night."

"Don't pull that line with me."

Arnold gazed at her evenly, eyelids half-closed. "Well, we didn't follow our normal morning routine either..."

Helga folded her arms across her pink bikini top. "Your point?"

He rolled his eyes. "You probably just forgot it."

"I didn't _forget it_. I clearly remember putting it in my bag." The way she enunciated each _t_ was clear and dangerous. Goosebumps erupted on his arms despite the warm weather.

"Whatever you say."

"You know how I know?"

Arnold sighed. "You're going to tell me anyw—"

"Because I used it to mark my _own_ book."

"I don't know what to tell you, babe." He enviously watched a seagull wheel to land in the water.

"Don't _'babe'_ me. You sound like Geraldo."

"Why do you need your phone anyway? We've only been gone, what, twenty-four hours?"

Helga scoffed as she tapped the spine of his book into her open palm. "Please. This isn't the first time you've hidden it. I know your ways."

"My _ways_? I think you owe me one for not letting you call up your boss immediately after that overdue wisdom tooth extraction…. Are you going to give me back my book?"

She was suddenly standing over him, blocking the sun. He could smell SPF 60 and her sweat and the ocean, and he fought hard not to close his eyes and let it all wash over him. He felt a finger trail along his shoulder, suspiciously softly and not at all in proportion to her apparent level of perturbation. Her voice was low. "You've lost your beach-reading rights."

"Hey! That's not fair." He struggled to sound affronted. The salt air made it hard to get mad.

"Don't play innocent with me." Helga was whispering.

"Oh. Because we know who'll win that game—" Arnold tried to laugh. He realized his mistake too late.

Helga stooped menacingly. If it weren't for the sheer length of her pale legs, he wouldn't have had to crane his neck so far backwards to maintain steady eye contact with her. In a voice that seared with something fiery, she told him exactly what would _not_ be happening to him later that evening if she found out he'd hidden her phone.

Arnold opened and closed his mouth a few times. "I'm… going to… go use the bathroom. You want anything? A drink maybe?"

"Yahoo." Her rigid pose melted slightly as she straightened.

"On it." He stood. Her refusal to move was pure condescension—the only way Arnold could side-step her, boxed in like he was, was to place his hands on either side of her waist and physically guide her out of the way.

"Make it two. And, now that I think about it, bring the barbecue chips."

"Sure."

"And don't even think about putting that phone back on the night stand. I'm wise to that trick."

"Helga—"

"You heard me. If it's where you say it is, you can bring it out here. And if it _isn't_ ," she continued lightly as the wind whipped her hair around her head, "you can take it out of that secret compartment in your suitcase that you think is so clever and _then_ bring it out here."

Arnold flinched slightly, but Helga didn't seem to notice. She was too busy pacing. Curious beach-goers glanced at the couple as they walked along the shore.

"And after that, we're going into the ocean. And you're going to tow _me_ around." She pointed at the old inner tube they'd hauled out of the garage. "And _I'm_ going to work on _my_ book."

"But Helga—you can't even take your phone—"

"You forget that I'm the daughter of Big Bob Pataki." She snapped her fingers haughtily. "Top-of-the-line accessories."

Arnold stared hard at the glittering sand.

Helga slid her sunglasses back onto her face, gently shook out the pages of her draft, and stretched languidly onto her stomach. She punctuated every word with her pen: "Chop chop, Cabana Boy."

When he came tromping back over the dune half an hour later, cooler and assortment of chips in hand, and woefully without a cell phone, it was to find his surprisingly flushed wife perched in his chair, finishing up a hurried conversation—a cell phone conversation—with whom he assumed to be their family.

She placed a hand over the microphone to stage-whisper, "It started ringing… and whaddya know, it was under the towel the whole time!"

Arnold dropped the cooler in the sand. The glass soda bottles inside clinked dully.

"Well, Arnold's back from the house so I'd better get going—" her voice started off jauntily enough, but when she turned again to Arnold she reported nervously, "Miriam says everything's just dandy on the home front. No broken craniums—"

Arnold extended a hand, palm upturned in the bright sun.

"—so just let us know—"

He frowned.

Helga groaned. "Fine!" The phone sailed towards him in a lofty arc.

Arnold brought the phone to his tired face. "Hi, Mom—sure, Miriam. Yes, we're enjoying the beach. Yes, that's the plan. Mm hm. Yep." He paused. "Oh, yes. Definitely that." He nodded, as if to himself. "Exactly. That would be… _advisable_. You're the best. Okay, bye." He pocketed the phone.

Helga shifted in the chair. "Heh. Well, what's water under the bridge?"

Arnold stood very still.

"Best to let sleeping dogs lie?" When he didn't move, she tried again, "I never said most of the things I said?"

He finally shook his head, grinning at her sad attempt. "Remember that game we were talking about? The one you always lose?" Arnold threw himself down on the towel, letting her keep the chair, and plucked his battered paperback out of the sand. He grabbed a Yahoo and handed it to her, then opened one for himself.

Helga mumbled something.

"Your mom won't be calling us for the rest of the trip, barring emergencies, of course." He tilted his head obligingly towards her. "She knows we'll be _busy_." He poked her ankle with the corner of his book. "Remind me again what our newest plan is this evening?"

She spluttered.

"And we can take turns." He pointed at the inner tube. "And can you please put some of this on my back?" He held up the sunscreen absently. For good measure, he leaned over and planted a kiss near her knee. "Then Cabana Boy might forgive you."

Twenty minutes later he was still spitting sand out of his mouth, but it had been worth it. What his wife hadn't seen was his practiced sleight of hand before he'd gone back to the house. And that while he was meticulously upending the sofa cushions and opening every drawer, he was also dialing his in-laws from the land line. "Oh, this is going to be so _fun_ , dear!" And that as he hummed to himself, putting together a selection of snacks they'd picked up the day before, the Pataki number was buzzing loudly under his wife's feet.

No one beat him at that game. Except maybe Grandpa. But no one else.


End file.
